A blog about food, focusing on vegan cooking for one person (or two small eaters).

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Monday, June 13, 2016

White Chocolate Cake with Apricots for One

Are you in the mood for something fabulous? Well hold onto
your girdle, Mabel, because this cake will knock off more than just your socks!

For the Cake:

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

Pinch salt

½ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup canola oil

¾ cup almond milk (or other non-dairy milk)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ TBLSP apple cider vinegar

6 ½ TBLSP white chocolate, melted (about 3 ½ ounces)

For the Frosting:

12 TBLSP vegan butter (3/4 cup)

2 3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar

Large slosh of vanilla extract

9 ½ TBLSP white chocolate, melted (5-6 ounces)

For the Assembly:

2 TBLSP water

1 TBLSP granulated sugar

2 apricots, pitted and thinly sliced

¼ cup walnuts, finely chopped

Make the Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray two single-serving
cake pans with baking spray or line with parchment and spray (preferred). My
baking pans are really two casserole-for-one-sized pans, about 5-inches across.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt,
and sugar.

Add in the oil, milk, vanilla, vinegar, and melted white
chocolate. Beat this combination until it’s quite smooth. No lumps!

Divide the mixture between the two prepared cake pans.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean
and the top springs back when touched.

Cool on a rack until completely room temperature (or
colder—setting it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes after they’re mostly
cooled will speed this process up). Remove them from the pans to speed things
up, but wait 30 minutes after taking ‘em out of the oven or they will be too
fragile and will shatter into several pieces.

Make the Frosting:

In a small bowl, combine the butter and sugar until
completely smooth.

Add in the vanilla extract and melted white chocolate and
beat the whole mishegas until it’s fluffy and unctuous.

Refrigerate until spreadable. Be careful not to leave it in
there too long or you’ll have to beat the daylights out of it to get it
spreadable again.

Make the Assembly
Components:

Boil the water and sugar in a small saucepan over medium
heat, stirring constantly to dissolve sugar. Set aside to cool a bit.

Assemble the Cake:

I like to do this on a plate resting on top of an overturned
mug so it’s at a more comfortable height.

Using a serrated knife, slice each cake layer horizontally
in half so that you have four layers of approximately the same thickness. (You
may have to trim any bulging tops, too.)

First Layer: I like to do this on a plate resting on top of an overturned mug so it’s at a more comfortable height.Place
one layer, cut side up, on the serving dish. Brush the syrup you made in the Assembly
Layer step on top of the cake.

Spread a thin layer of the frosting
on top of the syrup and dot the frosting with sliced apricots.

Second Layer: Spread
a thin layer of frosting on the uncut side of the next layer and turn it
upside-down on top of the previous layer so that the frosting touches the
apricots.

Repeat the syrup, frosting, apricot
treatment on the uncut top of that second layer, and then repeat the whole
“underside” frosting of the third layer, setting it on top of the second layer.

Third Layer: Repeat
the syrup, frosting, apricot treatment on top of that third layer, slather the
underside of the fourth layer (which should be the cut side) and set it on top
of the third layer.

Fourth Layer:
Spread some more syrup and then the frosting on the top and down the sides of
the cake. It should be a very thin layer—the crumb coat.

Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Spread the remaining frosting luxuriously all over the rest
of the cake. It doesn’t have to be too tidy on the sides because you’re going
to cover it with walnuts.

Press chopped walnuts into the sides of the cake.

Cover the top with the sliced apricots in an artful way, and
slather them with the remaining syrup. (You may have extra syrup.)

Refrigerate for one hour.

Let it come to room temperature for 2-3 hours before
devouring like a bear just awakened from a winter nap.

You might want to share this one with friends—It’s not large
in diameter, but it’s super rich and it’s HUGE!

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About Me

I've been a vegetarian in some form or other since I was a teenager. I never liked meat (especially red meat), and I won the battle with my mother when I was 17. Now, back then, you have to realize, it was hard to get tofu or other non-animal proteins in a regular grocery store, so although my general health improved (I stopped getting colds and flus, and I gained enough weight to stop looking like a holocaust survivor), I started having digestive problems.

Western doctors knew even less about nutrition than they know now, Mine suggested that I eat chicken or fish about twice a month to keep my body's own enzymes and acids to a decent level, and then stress wouldn't send me into such a miserable zoo of pain. So I did it. It worked pretty well for quite a while. But in 2006, I went vegan, now that it's easy enough to get non-animal proteins.

Now I'm starting a third blog, on vegan cooking for one (or two). It started with coming home from rehearsal and wanting just one cookie. But then it got fun--what else could I make that didn't involve leftovers, or, in the case of baked goods, guilt for eating the whole batch. And I thought I'd share this collection of recipes that I've accumulated.